NJ teacher suspended for mocking student’s name online

WAYNE – State officials have suspended a former North Jersey teacher’s license for a year after she mocked a student’s name on Facebook.

Yvette Nicholas agreed that ridiculing the student’s name was immature and based on the fact that a syllable of the name sounded like a common expletive. Officials did not disclose the name.

Nichols resigned from her tenured job at Pine Lakes Elementary School in Wayne in September 2013.

She admitted posting comments on her Facebook page ridiculing the student’s name, such as, “I still can’t get over the student’s name!” and “I want to ask the parents if I can change it,” according to the Board of Examiners’ ruling.

Nichols is alleged to have responded to others’ comments on Facebook by saying: “How do you think I feel when I have to address him???? I literally can’t stop laughing! I have to go all year with this’---!!!”

The school district determined she had violated its harassment, intimidation and bullying policy. The teacher denied bullying the boy.

In responding to the state Board of Examiners, Nichols said “the boy had only been her student for a few days and she ‘obviously did not harbor any ill will towards the young man or his family during such a short time period,’” the ruling said.